Social Science Palooza

[groovedaddy]

Every day, hundreds of thousands of scholars study human behavior. Every day, a few of their studies are bundled and distributed via e-mail by Kevin Lewis, who covers the social sciences for The Boston Globe and National Affairs. And every day, I file away these studies because I find them bizarrely interesting.

In this column, I’m going to try to summarize as many of these studies as space allows. No single study is dispositive, but I hope these summaries can spark some conversations:

Female mammals tend to avoid close male relatives during moments of peak fertility in order to avoid inbreeding. For the journal Psychological Science, Debra Lieberman, Elizabeth Pillsworth and Martie Haselton tracked young women’s cellphone calls. They found that these women had fewer and shorter calls with their fathers during peak fertility days, but not with female relatives.

Classic research has suggested that the more people doubt their own beliefs the more, paradoxically, they are inclined to proselytize in favor of them. David Gal and Derek Rucker published a study in Psychological Science in which they presented some research subjects with evidence that undermined their core convictions. The subjects who were forced to confront the counterevidence went on to more forcefully advocate their original beliefs, thus confirming the earlier findings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/opinion/07brooks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212

[daleanime]

1. Bookmarked....

for later.

[Igel]

2. I liked the site he directs readers to.

The bit I thought most interesting in today's "dump"--since I'll be student teaching Real Soon Now--dealt with effort and belief in societal justice on the part of members of minorities and majorities undertaking some long-term program. I.e., school, college, some training or other process that should result in some positive good for the person. If minority members believe in societal justice, they work harder and do better; if they don't, they don't. The results weren't significant for members of the majority. My only criticism is there was no indication in the abstract as to how large the difference was, no way to quantify the difference in effort and achievement/performance.

(It also stuck out because I'd heard these claims before.)